Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tanker News 2 July

[Marc] Pelham had the delicate task of executing the master plan for Brookley adopted by the board. It called for relocating or moving out some tenants who didn't fit the vision for the complex. The former Air Force base has 6 million square feet of industrial space, a significant share of all such space in southwest Alabama.

..."My reaction would be one of amazement and disbelief," said [Winston] Wells, whose company's 40-year tenure at Brookley is among the longest. "I thought Marc was the most personable person they'd had in that office for a while."

Now, buy your popcorn for “The Return of the Euros.” After a couple of weeks of not talking, Northrop Grumman has reemerged to tout its Airbus-based tanker entry with the new, edgy ads, and with a new press release. The release announces that the KC-45's refueling boom has completed its 100th flight.

We think TAnchorman has made better ads without having to pay someone on Madison Avenue hundreds of thousands of dollars. (This is a spoof of a KC-30 ad.) The new KC-30 PR campaign though definitely signals they are going back on the attack, and we sense an escalation in the hostilities.

Ho-hum, another day and another EADS executive being detained by the French authorities for insider trading. This time it is former Airbus president Gustav Humbert. It seems as it is only a matter of time until Ralph Crosby, CEO of EADS North America has his number called.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Just a common sense question about NG/EADS talking points and ads claiming they are ready to build now: If they are truly ready to build, why is there even one dollar of SDD budget in their bid? The answer would appear to me to be that the tanker that NG is buying to sell to the Air Force is progressing towards its first delivery (which is scheduled for next year) but more development is required to bridge the gap between the tanker EADS sold to Australia and a tanker that can meet the requirements (what requirements it does meet) that NG promised the Air Force.

In short, their We're Ready Now is pretty much as hollow as their statement that they would deliver the first one to the Air Force in November that was made waaaay back when the award was expected in October.

The unfortunate thing is that this whole campaign just strings people in Alabam along.

There is no way that the USAF is going to be able to convince Congress to fund this program based upon their original RFP. They can, of course, rebid the program with a different RFP (can you say three year delay while Boeing comes up with a KC-777 option?) or they can void their ward to N-G and actually buy a MEDIUM tanker from Boeing.

This contract actually getting approved both in appropriations and authorizations simply is NOT going to happen.

It doesn't matter how N-G wants to try to spin it, this dog don't hunt.......

It's already been approved and in the budget. No, the Boeing political foot troops in congress are going to attempt to hold up funding for the next defense budget and hoping they can slow the current already approved budget down.

Thats why the Tiahrt, Brownback, Roberts bill now all the manuvering and lip service. The USAF will give NG the green light, because they know NG will deliver before next defense budget. Boeing has not got enough votes in the House or the Senate plus the President. I don't see it going Boeings way at all, it's a USAF call now, and I think they have the right suff. They already told Boeing pound sand.

It's already been approved and in the budget.Do you have a CLUE about the dudgeting process? This Fiscal year is over in less than three months. There is absolutely NO production money for this contract in this year's budget. Heck, N-G hasn't broken ground on the factory they PLANNED to build in Alabama yet, and have put it on indefinite hold.

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